What some of you may not realise about me is that my gaming interests aren't limited to just roleplaying games and skirmish wargames. Rachel and I also host a (supposedly) monthly Monopoly Club.
Joining us at the table are Clare and Pete, making this a kind of spin-off from the Tuesday Knights (our roleplaying group).
Pete is an insatiable collector of the many, many themed-Monopoly sets and so every time we get together we play a different iteration of Monopoly.
In the three-and-a-half years we've been going, we've traded property and bankrupted each other in the worlds of Looney Tunes to Stranger Things, Indiana Jones to The Simpsons, and Ghostbusters to Jaws.
Our little group not only keeps a running league table of our various victories (and defeats) but also a table of our gradings of how well produced and how innovative these reskins of the classic game are.
If you want to learn more about our adventures in board gaming (or just check out some of the eccentric hacks of the classic original board game), then please visit this blog's little sister site: Don't Talk About Monopoly Club (it's the first rule of Monopoly Club).
I can't believe it's been over three-and-a-half years since we've visited Pooh Corner.
It was supposed to have been a well-earned Spring Break for Rachel, but we'd gotten tangled up in a mess of time-sapping medical appointments.
Eventually, after a morning of medical check-ups for the both of us, and a couple of laps with Alice around the Tonbridge recreation ground, we decided to seize the day and head out to Hartfield, on the edge of the Ashdown Forest, for a Winnie The Pooh adventure.
Our first stop was Pooh Corner in Hartfield's High Street, where we managed to snag a parking spot right outside the front door (there's no car park there, so it's pot luck finding on-street parking).
Formerly the village sweet shop (and Christopher Robin's getaway from the pressure of being a young celebrity and the constant press intrusion in his life), the building has now been converted into an incredible tea room and Pooh'seum (a well-stocked museum chronicling the creation of the Pooh stories and everything that spun out of that).
Alice was a massive hit in the tea room, with the staff, owner, and other visitors. I can't remember a time when she's had so much attention from strangers. It was adorable to see both grown-ups and children lavishing affection on here.
Everything in the tea room is Winnie The Pooh-themed, from the plates and tea pots to the table numbers.
The food was incredible... and got the Knight Family seal of approval. We probably ate too much. But, so what? We were on holiday!
EVERYTHING was Pooh-themed!!!
After filling our tummies, Pooh-style, we hopped back in the car and drove into the forest (aka The Hundred Acre Wood), found a car park and then set off into the trees, following the signs to "Bridge".
Our goal was to see the legendary Pooh Sticks Bridge, probably one of the most iconic locations in children's literature.
It was quite a downhill hike and Rachel was concerned I might not be able to make it back up the hill afterwards, but I was driven both by the spirit of 'carpe diem' and a deep-seated desire to visit this iconic bridge for the first time in many, many decades.
There were plenty of people on the path, heading in both directions, and we were expecting the bridge to be rammed when got there.
But by some miracle once we arrived it was just us for about five or 10 minutes, so we had a chance to take pictures and explore.
The only real error we made was not bringing any 'Pooh sticks' as the area around the bridge was, unsurprisingly, barren of fallen twigs.
But to be honest that didn't matter. It was just magical to be walking in the footsteps of Christopher Robin, Winnie The Pooh, Roo, Kanga, Eeyore, Rabbit etc
As expected the journey back up the steep hill was harder and slower, but there are wooden seats along the way making for suitable rest stops and as long as we stayed in the shade (not always possible) it wasn't too hot.
From the company, the food, the adoration of Alice to walking in The Hundred Acre Wood and standing on Pooh Sticks Bridge, this was one of the best days out we'd had in ages, which is why I'm surprised we haven't gone back.
Sure the walking was hard at times, but I never felt as though I would pass out or be taken ill as is often the case on such escapades.
Instead, I came home tired and content, fired up for future adventures.
Bring your own Pooh Sticks, as none will be found within the environs of the bridge
On the return journey we spotted the entrance to Owl's house up in a tree
Good news this week. The results of my last blood test came through (primarily checking my liver function) and all were normal, with no sign of abnormalities, so that's something to celebrate for a change.
I actually didn't hear anything from my GP (which, in these situations, is a good thing), so checked via the wonderful NHS app on my phone that Rachel signed me up for. It's brilliant. Not only can my GP (and hospitals) contact me via the app, but I can check my notes and test results.
Hooray for the NHS!
After opting out of last week's class because of the continuing extreme weather, I went back to Biscuit Club this week only to discover that our next session is the last of this "term"!
I'd thought we'd be adding on a few more to make up for the ones cancelled at the height of the heatwave, but clearly not.
However, there's a new class starting later in the year, and we get priority dibs on those places, so I'll probably attend that. It should be cooler by then (climate change willing).
Over the summer, we were invited to pop along to the Angel Centre in Tonbridge to join in some of the weekly, pay-as-you-go, classes for the general public that our coach runs.
Even though there's no tea and biscuits with these, Rachel and I agreed that it might be worth me checking the classes out as it was only something like four quid a session.
Not only can I not really focus on anything still, but I also feel lethargic and just want to vegetate.
For reasons, primarily the extreme heat, I've now only managed to attend two meetings of Biscuit Club in the last six or seven weeks.
A couple were cancelled and one was optional (and I didn't feel up to attending), but also there was the week where I had my steroid injections (which don't appear to have worked) and one where Rachel was overwhelmed with organising the annual awards day she puts on for the local media in the South-East of England.
I've tried to do some exercises, but the heat just tires me out.
Unfortunately, this has also meant I've had a couple of falls. While nothing was damaged beyond my dignity, it's a stark reminder of how I was a year ago and the fact that I had gone several months without any kind of collapse.
On a possibly positive note, I went back to the GP's this week for my latest blood test, to monitor my liver function, and my veins were much more visible than they usually are... which we atre attributing to the heat.
It was still incredibly painful, and I crushed Rachel's hand again as the nurse wiggled the needle around in my vein (well, that's what I think she was doing - I had my eyes screwed shut). But, apparently, she got two and a bit vials of my blood out.
Also, rather impressively, several days after my needle-encounter, I still haven't bruised around the penetration site, which is possibly a first.
Now, I just have to wait for the results and find out if I need to come back for more of this torture.
This pushes membership to a very lucky 13, but we could always do better! We're very welcoming around these 'ere parts.
Look to the right and you will see in the side column (below the current 'featured article') a widget entitled Join The Posse. Under avatars for my current followers is a button marked Follow.
Simply press that and - all being well - your avatar will join the ranks of this group of brave heroes.
I do think you'll need a Google account for this to work (Blogger, after all, is a Google thing).
Not only does this mean, my expertly crafted prose will appear in your Google "Reading List" but it demonstrates to me that you're interested in my waffle and support what I'm doing (without having to part with a single red cent, sign up to a Patreon, or back my Kickstarter).
For those of you new around here, my blog is kind of a broad church at present with a mix of film (and TV) reviews, trailers, books, comic books (particularly Titan's Conan and other Howardverse titles), and underpinning it all a life-long love of tabletop roleplaying games.
I also love swords-and-sorcery, monster horror, westerns, Star Wars, B-movies, select superheroes (primarily Superman and Fantastic Four these days), curry, pizzas, my long-suffering wife, Rachel, and our cute little doggo, Alice.
And probably other things that have slipped out of my Swiss Cheesed brain.
I also write, occasionally, about my health: the idea being that, as a stroke survivor, I can share both the highs and lows of my ongoing physical and mental battles. I try to limit this, at most, to once a week (although, where pertinent, it can slip into posts about other things).
Anyway, you're here now, reading this, so why wouldn't you want to join the Posse?
Of course, honestly, the best way to follow the action on Cowboys, Capes, and Claws is to add this blog to your Feedly aggregator or similar RSS feed reader application (it almost sounds as though I know what I'm talking about!)
Thanks to the effects of global warning, we've experienced a record breaking heatwave this week that goes way beyond just being "summer weather".
However, on the plus side, it did result in an epic thunderstorm on Friday night. At one point, which Rachel reckons lasted about half an hour, the storm was right overhead and one burst of thunder in particular was so loud it felt like it shook the house to its foundations.
Sadly, Alice doesn't like thunderstorms like I do and did need a lot of comforting during the middle-of-the-night event as lighting and thunder cracked and roared overhead.
What this heatwave has meant for me though is that I was relying heavily on prewritten material for the blog. There were some movie trailers that I added minimal commentary to, but the longest thing I actually wrote was the summary of our latest gaming session.
I'm slightly concerned how this will impact next week's posting routine, though. I have several scribbled notes of ideas for posts that I should have written this week. Hopefully it will cool down enough that I can concentrate on my writing properly and get things back to normal.
As I've probably said before: heat wipes me out like no other weather condition.
Because of my various medical conditions since the aneurysm and stroke 20 years ago, I'm incredibly susceptible to extreme heat, being unable to concentrate (even worse than normal) or do anything really (even something passive, like watching TV, was nigh on impossible for most of the day), prone to dizzy spells and, even, if I'm not careful (which I was this week), passing out.
In a very real sense, it often feels as though my brain is shutting down and I can't communicate with poor Rachel, I can get confused and forgetful. These things happen to me on occasion anyway, but it's just more frequent - and extreme - during the heights of a hot weather spell.
All being well, next week we'll be back on an even keel.
I did have my INR (blood thickness) tested again this week at my GP's surgery and it's staying within its target range, so I don't have to have another check for a month... which is great news.
After all the general positivity in the wake of my steroid injections last week, I got a call from my GP's surgery this week saying I needed to come in for a repeat blood test.
The latter showed signs of an increase in Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT). This could be due to an infection, some of my medication, a host of reasons. So, my GP - who never passes up the opportunity for a blood test - wants to double-check it next month.
Rachel stressed that it could be something as simple as the vast quantity of prescription medication I am taking and told me not to catastrophise.
Of course, I did. Although, to be honest, not as much as I have done in the past. I think I'm just resigned to the fact that this is my future now.
To be honest, I might as well rely on healing crystals, reiki, or leeches, I (half) joked with Rachel.
Anyway, while I'm still waiting for the steroid injections to kick in and take the edge off my discomfort, I have another appointment with the phlebotomist to look forward to in a few weeks.
On a more positive note, ahead of the impending heat wave this week, Rachel, Alice and I made it to yesterday's Home Front event at Hever Castle, full of living history displays, period music and dancing, and 1940's re-enactors.
Bigger and better than the last time we attended the event, there were more tents, more people dressed up, generally more of everything. As usual Alice attracted a lot of interest with people wanting to know her breed and if it was okay for them (or their children) to pet her. She, of course, relished the attention.
The heat got to me a bit at first, but I downed a lot of water, took things slowly, stayed in the shade as much as I could, had some great ice cream, and we enjoyed a fantastic afternoon.
The dancers, as ever at such events, were phenomenal
I have no recollection of when I first acquired a Funko Pop! or even which one it was, but now - like something out of the Twilight Zone they seem to be multiplying and filling every nook and cranny in the house!
Wikipedia says of the divisive little figures:
"In 2010, the Funko Pop! line was created. Funko Pop! vinyl line are figures modelled in a style similar to the Japanese chibi style. The figures have large squarish heads, disproportionately small bodies, and large, circular black eyes"
I know some people don't get the appeal, but I find them very cute (and affordable) manifestations of the various niches within my geeky hobbies.
My most recent acquisitions were Dunk and Egg from the excellent A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms and I was very excited to receive a random (one in six, I believe) chase variant of Dunk, dressed as a knight. Of course, this means, at some point I'll need to pick up the original Dunk in scruffy clothes figure.
Originally, I had a single shelf over the door into the gamesroom that was to be the home of my modest Pop! collection, but then more continued to arrive and the horde spread out. So now you can find on book shelves and on top of glass cabinets in several rooms.
Most have been removed from their boxes (one of Rachel's rules for my collecting habits), except for a handful they consider truly collectible (mainly Pops! related to the Mortal Engines movie, based on the book by Philip Reeve).
I'll get round to releasing Dunk and Egg soon, but, at the moment, they seem quite content boxed-up as they are.
A few aren't particularly well-balanced (and have a habit of jumping off shelves in the middle of the night) and so have to lean back on books, but mostly the figures are remarkably stable and remain where they're placed.
Casual, pre-injection mode, reading this week's 2000AD
After weeks - nay, months - of bitching, moaning, and dieting the stars finally aligned and I was able to get my long sought-after steroid injections in my back.
These will hopefully numb the pain for a while, allowing me to exercise more with (all being well) proper corrective results to beat the crippling inconvenience of osteoarthritis in my lumbar facet joints.
We arrived at the hospital at the crack of dawn, with a short side quest to drop Alice off with Rachel's parents, getting to the Chronic Pain Clinic at around 7.30am, just ahead of several other people.
After a short wait we were all allowed in and ushered to our individual rooms, where a couple of nurses, then the consultant, came in to check blood pressure and blood sugar, do some consent paperwork, and make sure we understood the nature of the impending procedure.
I'm happy to report that my blood sugar levels were a fraction of what they had been in January, when my previous visit had had to be aborted because my body wasn't ready for the proposed injections.
Although the consultant wasn't the one I had seen before, he was just as friendly and patient, taking his time to go through the procedure, the recuperation period, how soon we might see results (seven to 10 days) etc
I was the second person to be taken in to the operating room during this early shift, with a hospital gown in place of my t-shirt I was asked to lay down on the table and place my head in the padded hole.
Then, after a powerful numbing spray was lathered over my back, a series of six - almost painless - injections were made; three on each side of my spine.
Only one actually hurt - making my stroke-afflicted left leg twitch quite violently. But I had been expecting this as the identical injections I had almost a decade ago caused the same reaction.
And that was it.
I was wheeled back to my room, where Rachel was waiting. We were offered tea, biscuits, and a newspaper (it's not a true medical experience without biscuits), then a very short time later we were allowed to leave.
Complimentary biscuits indicate that it's all over
Evidence of four of the six injections in my back
This is what we really came for: tea, biscuits, and a newspaper
I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure but I reckon we were in and out in around 90 minutes, maybe two hours.
Another positive health moment came later in the week with yet another International Normalised Ratio (INR) test of my the thickness of my blood.
This was also a blessing for poor Rachel who was having to administer these nightly injections. She had said that since my recent diet it was harder to find fatty tissue on my tummy to easily stick the needles in (I took this to mean she now considers me "ripped" and gifted with a miraculous six-pack!).
But no more. At least for the moment, anyway.
However, I also had another blood test this week (testing lipids or something, I still can't recall) and that was a bit of a nightmare.
I hadn't slept more than a couple of hours the night before because I was so anxious, but the phlebotomist did a heroic job of - I believe, I had my eyes screwed shut - finding a willing vein, wiggling the needle about and drawing out the required blood.
I'd drunk over five pints of Barley Water that morning (as you're supposed to be well hydrated), which I think helped with the flow - although the nurse joked that my extracted blood was probably 50 per cent water!
All credit to her, there was very little bruising on my arm afterwards. I've had less painful blood tests that caused much more bruising.
My arm in the aftermath - the red marks were left when I removed the bandage later that morning
Kudos, also, to my long-suffering wife Rachel whose hand I nearly crushed in a combination of my trypanophobia (fear of needles) and inability to handle pain.You can see the indentations my fingers made in Rachel's hand in the picture below, which was taken an hour or so after we left the doctor's surgery.
Now I await the results of this test - and to see if the steroid injections have the desired effect.
Oh dear! I squeezed Rachel's hand rather hard while I was having my blood extracted
The discovery of a dead bird on our decking earlier this month (I suspect it had flown into our glass doors at the back of the house) took my mind back to a more positive avian interaction five years earlier.
In June 2021, while Rachel was on a works' Zoom call, she alerted me to the fact that Alice was barking in the back garden and she thought our pup might have caught a mouse (which, we both agreed was totally out of character for her).
However, when I went to investigate, I discovered she had found an injured sparrow and was gently carrying it in her mouth to one of the flower beds where it could get some shade.
Having secured a small cardboard box, and filled it with packing paper and some of Barney's Timothy Hay, I gently scooped up the bird - which had a nasty wound on its hind quarters - and put it in the makeshift nest.
I tried to drip-feed it some water from a plastic syringe, but, despite still being conscious and breathing, it wouldn't take the liquid nourishment,
My next course of action was to phone the vets, who explained that this wasn't the sort of case they could help with, but referred me to a local wild animal rescue centre, Folly Wildlife Rescue, that I confess neither Rachel nor I even knew existed before this.
Calling the centre, we were given instructions to bring the bird in its box to their location, just outside of Tunbridge Wells.
When I picked up the box the bird, seeking the security of darkness, squirmed its way down to the bottom of the nest I had made for it.
Then we loaded up the car, securing Alice in the back seat, Rachel driving, and me with the injured sparrow in his box on my lap.
While stuck in traffic in Southborough - behind a car with a personalised number plate - I decided that the bird's name was Dan (because of the car in front of us and the classic Alan Partridge scene).
The centre was easier to find than the directions I'd been given had suggested (we relied instead on Rachel's sat nav on her phone), and Dan - in his box - was dropped off, after I filled in some paperwork.
I emailed the centre once we got home for an update, which arrived a few hours later:
"The bird was assessed on arrival and found to have bruising on its body and punctured air sacks. It was given immediate critical care and medication and is in the care of our vet and staff."
Over the bank holiday weekend I emailed again, seeking a further update on Dan's condition (having been warned by friends not to get too attached, should the worst happen) and this lunchtime, I heard back:
"The sparrow is continuing to progress well at this time."
This made me enormously happy and I aimed to drop them a, probably final, email later in the week, just to check up how he is doing (I realise their email is run by volunteers who have more important things to do than answer needy emails from rescuers).
Both Rachel and I have now donated to Folly Wildlife Rescue and it's a local charity I would definitely consider giving to again, as it offers an invaluable service to wild animals that I never knew was available.
SOME TIME LATER...
Fly, Dan, fly...
In an unexpected development, a few days later we received a phone call from Folly Wildlife Centre.
Initially, I feared the worst, but the woman explained that the sparrow had recovered and was itching to be set free. Would we like to come and collect him, to release him in our garden, she asked.
I was giddy with excitement and said we'd be there as soon as we could.
Luckily Rachel wasn't in a Zoom meeting and so once again, having made up another cardboard 'nest box' for Dan, we set off with Alice in tow.
When we rolled up at the rescue centre, we were met at reception, the box was taken away and Dan was placed carefully within.
Hailing his recovery as a "success story", they put a bit of tape over the top of the box to hold it shut, warning us to hold it tight as Dan was "a bit feisty".
The journey home was full of excitement, anticipation, and speculation as to how Dan would react when we could finally open the box in our garden, allowing him to fly free and (hopefully) rejoin his (imagined) family.
This is kind of where things didn't go quite as expected. I was looking forward to a dramatic John Woo moment or a shot resembling the end of Blade Runner, with Dan majestically taking to the air and soaring away.
Instead, as we all stood in the garden and I carefully opened the cardboard box, Dan flapped out... and crash landed on the decking!
At this point, Alice (being none the wiser) thought this was a game... and chased him.
Rachel was all geared up to video Dan's flight to freedom, as the woman at the centre had suggested when we picked him up.
Instead, she caught the farcical Benny Hill-style scene of me chasing (well, hobbling) after Alice who was chasing after Dan as he flapped around the decking.
He then proceeded to waddle under the sun loungers and hop down into the inviting darkness of the narrow gap between our decking and the fence.
We tried to look for him, but couldn't see him. Even Alice had a look a bit later on, but couldn't scent him, so we guess he recovered his composure and flew away.
Preparing for Dan's "spectacular" release!
THE DENOUEMENT...
When the the gardeners arrived for one of their last visits to finish the new planting (this was following our 'major redevelopment' of the garden) later that day, Jess volunteered to crawl under the decking and check to see if Dan was trapped down there.
It turns out there's a small bird-sized hole through to our neighbour's garden just where Dan dived down and we all came to the conclusion that he had "escaped" through there.
For my birthday in 2019, Rachel agreed to pay for my two original Hawk The Slayer posters to be framed professionally.
The following January they went up (thanks to Rachel's dad) in the gamesroom, and I couldn't be happier.
The top one is a quad poster that would have been displayed outside a cinema, while beneath that is an official art print that was produced to coincide with the launch of the (sadly failed) 2015 Kickstarter to fund the sequel, Hawk The Hunter.
It's signed by Hawk's co-creator and director of the 1980's original movie, Terry Marcel.
Then beneath that I have a signed picture of Annette Crosbie as the Abbess, and a stock publicity picture of the legendary Jack Palance as Voltan.
My pop culture Odyssey: a slice of super-powered geek life with heavy emphasis on pulp adventure, superheroes, comic books, westerns, horror, sci-fi, giant monsters, zombies etc
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
